The best DJ turntables can help make the difference between a club that draws in the crowds or a club that flounders and dies a slow death. This is especially true if you plan to take music seriously in your own club, where the quality of sound is a major issue for you to handle. If you’re out in the market and looking for the perfect tool to help you do your thing, here are a couple of things you’d want to look out for:

Direct Drive

There is a reason you want to get direct drive over belt drive, and that reason is a significantly higher level of torque on direct drives. Belt drives also have a tendency to slip and erode with use, and are generally not recommended for serious DJs who want to turntable as well.

High Torque

The best DJ turntables have a decent torque level on the disks, ranging around 1.5kg/m, and are usually found on direct drive turntables. The problem here, however, is that only an experienced DJ will be able to tell whether the label on the turntable is accurate or not. Check for resistance when pulling back the disk, and never get a turntable that doesn’t ’snap’ a disk back into a spin after stopping or pulling it back.

Straight tone arm

A good tone arm needs to hold a pickup and stylus where they need to be, and a straight tone arm gets the job decently well. The best DJ turntables usually have a straight tone arm, which is a good measure to prevent the needles from jumping all over the place and ruining the overall sounds on your mixes.

Decent pitch adjustment

And last but definitely not the least is a decent range of pitch adjustment. This will allow you to adjust the tempo of the music, varying between slower, somber tunes and fast-paced, energetic ones. A range of plus-minus eight is a decent enough value to work with for most clubs DJs, which then comes as the recommended pitch adjustment levels.